It is generally appreciated that elemental and chemical analysis techniques have important applications to determine the composition of a material in various forms. X-Ray Fluorescence Spectroscopy (e.g. XRF) is a particularly useful technique for many applications of elemental and chemical analysis that includes a process of analyzing emissions from a test sample in response to exposure to X-Ray sources. The emissions from exposed samples comprise wavelength signatures that identify the elemental and chemical composition of the sample material enabling easy and rapid identification.
In particular applications, XRF instruments may be utilized in liquid environments using a probe in an analysis stream. More specifically some embodiments of such XRF instruments may utilize an X-Ray source and a Silicon Drift Device (SDD) for detection of the X-ray emissions. Historically, XRF detectors utilizing SDD components are maintained at a low set temperature because variation in temperature typically results in changes to the resolution of the XRF instrument. It is also appreciated that in certain applications the resolution of SDD detection components gradually degrade over time while the instrument is in continual operation, eventually reaching a point when the XRF instrument needs to be taken offline and restored back to its standard operating resolution. Such degradation of resolution affects the accuracy of analysis results produced by the XRF instrument which become unreliable due to the cumulative degradation of detector resolution over time of use.
In many embodiments the degradation is partly reversible via a process called thermal “annealing” that recovers the stable crystal structure of the detector, however the XRF instrument would typically need to be shut down and taken off-line for the annealing process resulting in disruption of operations that rely on the instruments to provide accurate measurements.
Therefore, it is appreciated that it is highly desirable to extend the useful time of the detector between periods of shut down for the annealing process while maintaining the accuracy of the analysis results for as long as possible. For example, it is desirable in many commercial environments to minimize the amount of time that an XRF instrument needs to be taken offline for repair and/or calibration allowing for near continuous operation while maintaining the accuracy and resolution of the instrument.